GenX so

Today’s Zits has Jeremy using intensifier so modifying a verb: one type of what I’ve called GenX so (named that for its spread in people from Generation X):

The stereotypical associations of GenX so are to young white women (in the U.S.), no doubt because of its prominence in the movies Heathers (1988) and Clueless (1994). Studies of actual usage (though admittedly small in scale) suggest that the actual association with women, while apparently real, is smaller than the stereotype would suggest; and as the GenXers have aged, they seem to have carried this usage with them, and it’s spread to many people not in GenX (like me). For some assessment of these factors, see the 2007 paper by Douglas Kenter, Eric Lee, and Rowyn McDonald (written for me in an undergraduate seminar on linguistic innovations), available here.

Intensifier so has been around as a modifier of scalar adjectives and adverbs for a very long time; the innovation is its spread to other contexts. As the Dec. 2005 draft additions to OED2 on so have it:

1999 S. Rushdie Ground beneath her Feet (2000) xvi. 501 We guess communism just got buried in the rubble there somewhere. And those Ceauşescus? So not missed.

2005 J. M. Czech Grace Happens xi. 62 You’ve seen the carousel and it’s so not cool to be seen here if you’re over nine years old.

I’ve included all the cites in the entry, so that you can get some feel for the range of uses and users. In particular, you can see the spread of GenX so from use specifically by the young to wider uses, connoting informality and hipness.

I’ve been collecting occurrences of GenX so (in an unsystematic way) since 2004. What follows, for anyone who’s interested, is my current file of examples. (Please don’t try to do statistics of any kind on this data; I collect data from things I read and hear, and that’s so not a random sample of the material out there. In particular, that there are so many cites in gay contexts doesn’t say anything at all about GenX so and homosexuality.)

1. From Jed Davis on the newsgroup soc.motss on 2/2/04:

Michael Wharton writes:

And “the sodomites after decades of illegal buttfucking” sounds soooo much like a certain line from a certain ST:TNG episode.

That is *so* not an image I needed.

2. Jerry Scott & Rick Kirkman, “Baby Blues” strip, 6/7/04:

Woman: Okay, Bunny, let’s say I did agree to watch your kids while you and Butch go on this “emergency” trip to Hawaii…

I tried to communicate with the spririt world, and I so wasn’t ready for that.

20. Letter from Richard Bunyan, April 2005 Genre, p. 10:

I am appalled that you would show a cigarette (albeit unlit) between the lips of your cover model (JAN/FEB ’05). I mean, he’s certainly got better things to do with those lips. And smoking is so not sexy.

“You did not just say these jeans make my ass look big! I am so hitting you with the September issue of Vogue!”

30. Mike Wood, editor’s column, Instinct, November 2005, p. 12:

Who you do need to know about are the outstanding men who comprise our annual Leading Men issue. (Parker [Ray, previous editor in chief] so wanted to be included. Don’t tell him, but he wasn’t even nominated.)

31. Tony Rzepela on soc.motss, 11/16/05:

Tragically, I’m seduced by Logo. It is just as nice as I thought it would be to be able to turn to a channel and get reliable glob content. Even if it’s trash. If they ever expand their “CBS News on Logo” to a reliably scheduled show, I am so there.

In any case, the verdict is clear. Love them as we do, the men of Dolce & Gabbana— with all their lean ripped muscle — are so 15 minutes ago!

36. Zits cartoon, 3/6/06, two teen boys:

Jeremy: Hector, I burned some CDs for the cross-country road trip!

Hector: Dude!

Jeremy: There’s “Driving Out of Town”, “Driving in the Rain”, “Driving After the Rain”, “Driving When It’s Partly Cloudy”, “Driving Uphill”, “Driving Downhill”, “Driving Through States Whose Names Begin With a Vowel”. Then there’s the boxed set I call “Driving Just Because We Can.”

[Withers] What’s your thing for Eminem? Is it because he looks like porn star Jeremy Jordan?

[Cooper] You are so on to me.

39. Mike McKinley on soc.motss, 3/16/06, reacting to a report of a revamped version of “Liza with a Z” (he detests Liza M.):

I am so barfing!

40. NYT editorial, “The Amnesty Trap”, 4/5/06, p. A22:

All it [the Martinez-Hagel compromise bill on immigration] would do is give a face-saving assurance to hard-liners that immigrants would suffer adequately for their green cards and allow Republicans to reassure suspicious constituents: this is so not amnesty.

(He is said to be worth between fifty and a hundred million dollars. His father gave him Business Week when he was nine, but I know that can’t be why he is so rich today, because my father also gave me articles from Business Week when I was that age, and I am, like, so not worth between fifty and a hundred million dollars.)

44. amazon.com description of a Grant Barrett book (read 6/8/06):

More than 750 brand-new words that make “bling-bling” sound so five minutes ago For readers who want to be on the cutting edge of the English lexicon or for dedicated word geeks, The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English presents more than 750 words that have unofficially joined the English language.

… One of [Tricia Irwin’s] data points reminds me that I’ve encountered “You are so busted” quite a bit myself — not directly at me by a Gen-X cop, luckily, but on TV shows and in movies. I have my own favorite recent example heard in the wild, which has the virtue of having been uttered spontaneously rather than being part of a movie or sitcom script like so many of the standardly cited examples:

The speaker is Mike Golic, sports commentator (on ESPN radio’s “Mike and Mike” show). Golic is a former professional football player (defensive tackle, if that’s relevant — it does correctly imply a very large size and macho type demeanor) born and raised in the outskirts of Cleveland (probably not relevant). What is relevant is that he’s 38 years old, which I guess does place him within Gen X, but he doesn’t fit the informal Heathers/Friends/Buffy/Woody Allen sort of profile. Golic is referring here to the Buffalo Bills’ surprisingly wise decision over the off-season to stick with quarterback Ryan Kilpatrick, who is now playing superbly this year, a major surprise in the light of the fact that he came into the league as an unheralded college player from Harvard, not exactly a football factory.

“They had to see what they had [at quarterback]. He is so answering that question right now.”

I’m SO sending this post to my friends.🙂 In all seriousness, I was intrigued to see your citation of a “Buffy” episode. That show, I believe, has inspired a lot of linguistic commentary — though, judging by the content your this blog, you probably already knew that!

Regardless, thanks for the trip down memory line from all of these old shows and movies!

[…] This has happened to such an extent that the phenomenon has become known among linguists as “Gen-X so” (first coined by Arnold Zwicky in 2001 in a post to the mailing list of the American Dialect […]